


Awakening

by thebasement_archivist



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Angst, M/M, Vignette
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2004-09-10
Updated: 2004-09-10
Packaged: 2018-11-20 12:26:33
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,932
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11335602
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thebasement_archivist/pseuds/thebasement_archivist
Summary: After the war, Mulder and Krycek meet again.





	Awakening

**Author's Note:**

> Note from alice ttlg, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [The Basement](http://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Basement), which moved to the AO3 to ensure the stories are always available and so that authors may have complete control of their own works. To preserve the archive, I began manually importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in June 2017. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [The Basement's collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/thebasement/profile).

Awakening

### Awakening

#### by Marcia Elena

  


Title: Awakening 

Author: Marcia Elena 

Email: 

Keywords: M/K, Post-Colonization, Mulder POV 

Summary: After the war, Mulder and Krycek meet again. 

Written for the 16th Lyric Wheel, the 'Beginnings Wheel', April 29, 2004. 

Rating: R 

Spoilers: Vague references to 'Tunguska' and 'RatB'. Season 8 never happened in this timeline. 'Requiem' probably didn't happen either. 

Disclaimer: Mulder and Krycek belong only to each other. The only profit is theirs. 

Author's Notes: Sorry for being late again. I'd all but given up writing for this Wheel, because until a few hours ago, I hadn't had even the glimmer of an idea for a story, despite the excellent lyrics Waterfall sent me. I sat down one last time to see if something would come to me, and well, this is the result. I warn you, it's probably very rough, so my apologies to everyone if it's worse than my usual, and to Waterfall if it's completely different than what she'd imagined. 

To all the inspiring friends in my life, old and new ones alike -- most especially Verily, Leda, Meixia, Shan, Satina, and my sweet Logan. 

* * *

Awakening  
by Marcia Elena 

Fighting a war isn't easy. 

That's something I've known for as long as I can remember. It seems to me that I've always been fighting something, numerous private wars throughout the years. They have all left their scars on me, some more visible than others, but I've survived. Maybe I've even grown stronger. Maybe wiser. 

Maybe. 

It's a hard thing, though, to realize that winning a war can be just as hard as fighting it. Killing off an entire species, even one that tried to kill and enslave ours, is a heavy burden to bear. We're all guilty, the whole sorry human race. Or at least what's left of it. A planet full of murderers. 

We had no choice. 

Among all the horrors the aliens have inflicted on us, that may be the most abominable one. 

Once colonization happened and armed combat began in earnest, the high-horse I'd used to ride in my FBI days quickly became a casualty of war, another carcass among many, left to rot in the battlefield. Each time I reflected on it, on the things we were doing in our desperate struggle to survive, the urge to apologize to Krycek was an urgent thing inside me, demanding to be spoken. But Krycek was never there to hear it, and it was only in my heart that I told him, 'I understand now. I know.' 

The day we received the official word about our victory, there was no euphoria. Even the ripple of relief that ran through my unit was a humble one. We all knew it could've been us instead of them. The unit's leader -- an ex-military man, and the most superstitious person I'd ever met -- told us that despite all our bravery and heroic efforts, in the end what really allowed us to win was luck. Just that: dumb luck. No one disagreed with him. 

He looked straight at me when he said that. I nodded at him, and he nodded back. The respect he had for me was mutual: he'd been retired out of the Marine Corps for rubbing his superiors the wrong way with his irrational beliefs. A fitting person to lead me in a war against aliens, some would've said. He seemed to have a superstition about everything; I didn't ask him if there were any about leaving without saying goodbye. 

Less than one hour after his announcement, I was on the road, carrying a battered backpack with all the belongings I had left, off to look for... something. Somewhere I could settle down, perhaps. Friends that might've survived. A reason to go on. 

I walked for miles, hitchhiked, walked again. I lived off the kindness of strangers. Nearly everyone I met seemed to be shell shocked; no one really laughed anymore, but they shared whatever food and water they had with me. Many people were missing limbs, and more than once I thought one of the men walking ahead of me must be Krycek. But drawing closer, I'd see it wasn't him. It was never him, and the words inside me went on unsaid. 

The days and weeks passed in a blur of unknown faces and desolate, burnt-out places, until I lost count of them. The weather patterns had shifted and become erratic during the war -- one of the many aftereffects of the weapons either we or the aliens had used -- and I couldn't even guess what month it was, never mind what season it was supposed to be. 

When I came upon a lone flower growing by the side of the road, I chose to believe that it was spring. A season of rebirth. A time of new beginnings. 

It was, I decided, the first flower of spring. It was certainly the first flower I'd seen in years. 

I didn't pick it. I just stood there looking at it, a fragile looking daisy. Thinking that it probably wouldn't survive the next strong wind or rain shower. Remembering that daisies meant loyal love and innocence. Wondering briefly if I'd ever see either one of those again. 

I also remembered that finding the first flower of spring was said to be an omen, depending on which day of the week it was: Monday meant good fortune, Tuesday great attempts that would be successful. Wednesday meant marriage. Thursday warned of small profits, Friday meant wealth, Saturday misfortune and Sunday excellent luck for weeks. 

Assuming that it was neither Wednesday or Saturday, then, I was safe. 

It wasn't long after that that I reached the edge of the world. Literally. 

I'd been slowly and steadily heading east, making my way back home, wanting to see if my apartment building was still standing, more for sentimental reasons than anything else. 

The building wasn't there anymore. Neither was the street. Nor the city. 

The whole state seemed to be gone. 

Where Virginia was supposed to be, there was a hole. A crater. Black and empty, so big it boggled the mind, stretching out in every direction. Grotesque. 

I stared at it, numbly, unable to process what I was seeing at first, and then unwilling to accept the reality of it. We'd heard of such things whenever news had trickled in -- it was said that half of China and Eastern Europe were gone, that a big part of Canada had been buried under a barrage of alien fire, that Hawaii was nothing more than barren rock now. I'd seen more than enough evidence of destruction on my way back from Oregon, where I'd spent most of the war. But this... I couldn't understand how we hadn't heard about it. How no one had told me about it on my long trek here. 

I fell to my knees there, still staring. I didn't pray; I didn't cry. I just looked, like I'd recently looked at the flower. But where the flower had been the hope of life, a gentle reminder of beauty, this was the certainty of death, brutal, obscene. 

I was here, I thought. Once, I was here. 

Dumb luck. Just that. 

Had Scully been there when it happened? Skinner? Langly, Frohike, Byers. Had they been there? All the people I'd known, the few ones I'd loved. Were they gone? All the millions I'd never laid eyes on. Dead. 

Another hard realization hit me at that moment: I would most likely never know. I wouldn't be able to know if anyone I knew had survived unless I happened to find them. And there was no way to look. Where to start? There was no evidence left to sift through, no trail to chase after. Skinner and the Gunmen had no out of state relatives that I knew of, and Scully's brothers and their families had gathered at Margaret Scully's house at the beginning of the war so that the whole clan could be together. 

Alive or dead, then, they were all somewhere I couldn't follow. 

I don't know how long I stayed on my knees looking at nothing. All I know is that eventually exhaustion and grief caught up with me, and I curled on the ground and slept. 

It was early morning when I woke up, my stomach growling. I sat up, still facing that abyss, and rummaged through my backpack to find something to eat. My hands trembled as my fingers brushed against the framed photograph of Scully, the signed first edition of Contact that had been a birthday present from Byers, my wallet. Of all things, I still had my stupid wallet. It held only my FBI badge, a quarter, and the note Krycek had left for me all those years before, directing me to Wiekamp. I wanted to laugh, but what rose out of me was a sob, loud and broken, piercing the stillness of that place so acutely it made my heart lurch in my chest. My hands trembled harder, my whole body shook; absently I noticed that in my state of agitation, some of my things had fallen out of my backpack, among them my fork. To drop a fork means a man is coming to visit, my trivia-filled memory supplied. For a dizzy second I wondered which of the ghosts I carried with me it would be. 

I did laugh then, a sound somehow worse than my sob had been. I started shoving my scattered belongings into my backpack again, and was startled when a voice spoke behind me. 

"You didn't know," it said, the words sounding uncertain, almost like a question. 

I froze. That voice... It was him. Not just any ghost, but my favorite one. The one person that had always haunted me. 

I drew in a deep breath and turned around to face him. He looked well for a ghost, I thought. Somewhat thinner than I'd last seen him, but otherwise looking healthier. Tanned skin, a few more lines on his face, hair as dark as I remembered yet beginning to gray at the fringes. He was wearing faded blue jeans and army boots, a tee shirt that looked as if it'd seen better days. I couldn't tell what color it was; I guessed it was either red or green. He stepped nearer, his eyes shining, locked on mine. His clean shaven face made me raise a hand to my own face, the stubble growth of days scratchy under my fingers. Shaving was a luxury I couldn't afford as often as I would've liked in those days, and I wondered how I looked to him. 

As he crouched down beside me, I wanted to reach out and touch him. I wanted to finally tell him all the things that had been waiting inside me for a chance to be said. To tell him I'd missed him. To ask if he was really here, or if I'd conjured him somehow. 

But he was the one to touch me first, his one hand coming to rest tentatively on my cheek for a too brief caress. I could still feel the tingle of his fingers on my skin after he'd pulled his hand away. No one had touched me in so long, and that simple contact had suddenly reminded my body that despite the horror lying only a few feet away from us, both of us still seemed to be very much alive. 

"You didn't know," Krycek said again, and this time his tone was surer. I looked away from him for a second to glance at the flagrant absence to my right, and when my eyes met his again I saw that the gleam in his gaze was one of unshed tears. I did touch him then, stroking his cheek as he'd stroked mine, but allowing my hand to linger. He felt so warm. 

"It's not radioactive," he whispered, his voice sounding rougher than usual, scraping against my insides and making me shiver. I gaped at him, showing him that that particular possibility hadn't even crossed my mind. He shivered as well, as if in response, and brought his hand to my cheek again, traced my jaw with his fingers, slid them shakily through my hair. "Mulder..." 

I swallowed. "What- what are you doing here?" I rasped, shaking with him. Inwardly kicking myself for not greeting him with better words. 

He didn't seem to mind. "I came looking for you," he told me. "When I heard about this, I thought-" He shook his head. "I knew there'd be nothing here, but I wanted to see. And I thought that if you were still alive, this was the only place where I might find you." He exhaled sharply, lowered his hand and his eyes, an expression of wonder and sorrow settling over his features. "It's unbelievable that I did. You could've been anywhere, you could've been-" 

"But I'm not," I said, cutting him off. "I'm here, Alex. I'm really here." 

He shivered visibly again when I said his name, but didn't immediately raise his eyes to mine. Instead he reached for my knife lying on the ground beside us and handed it to me, only then looking at me. I took it from him, our fingers brushing, electricity sparking my heart and my brain. I put the knife away and reached for my wallet, taking out the quarter I had and giving it to him. Heads up, just to be sure. 

He smiled as he looked at it. There were more tears in his eyes now, and my own vision blurred as I smiled back at him. 

"Wanna flip it?" he asked me, getting back to his feet, helping me stand up as well. "You're packed, we could leave, head... somewhere," he shrugged. "Anywhere. We can drive for a day, and then we'll take a look at the map." 

"Drive?" I asked. He laughed as I looked around and spotted an old pickup idly parked some distance from us. I hadn't heard the engine when he'd arrived. I shouldered my backpack and looked back at him. "I think we're going to need new maps," I told him, avoiding looking at the crater beside us only with an effort. I didn't want to see it again. 

His expression softened, and he nodded at me. We made our way to his truck in unspoken agreement and left. We both knew that wherever we went now, whatever wars we happened to fight, it would be together. 

The day was waning when we passed by the place where I'd seen the flower. I made him stop, and we both got out to look. The daisy was gone, but in its place there were two new buds. Krycek wrapped his arms around me, the real and the fake one, and kissed me. I could feel his heart racing against mine as I moaned into his mouth. 

"Is it spring?" I murmured against his lips. 

"Nearly fall," he informed me, not pulling away. Kissing me again. 

I smiled. "If we catch a falling leaf on the first day of autumn we won't catch a cold all winter." 

His only answer was to kiss me harder. It was morning again when we finally drove away. 

We learned how to live again, and in time I did tell him all the things I wanted to. We found out we still knew how to love, and I discovered there were many other words inside me that had always been waiting for him. 

We didn't remember about the first day of autumn until it was much later in the season. But it didn't matter. 

Through all the days that came and went after that, we were both as warm as we could be. 

* * *

Further Author's Notes: Just in case these are too obscure superstitions, I thought I'd add an explanation here: 

About the knife - If a friend gives you a knife, you should give him a coin, or your friendship will soon be broken. 

About the coin - It's bad luck to pick up a coin if it's tails side up. Good luck comes if it's heads up. 

* * *

Heads Carolina, Tails California  
(Tim Nichols / Mark D Sanders)  
(recorded by Jo Dee Messina) 

Baby, what do you say we just get lost? Leave this one horse town like two rebels without a cause. I got people in Boston  
Ain't your daddy still in Des Moines?  
We can pack up tomorrow, tonight, let's flip a coin. 

Heads Carolina, Tails California  
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer  
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean  
Where? It don't matter as long as we're going Somewhere together. I've got a quarter  
Heads Carolina, Tails California 

We can load what we own in the back of a U-haul van Couple modern day Moses', searching for the promised land We can go four hundred miles before we stop for gas We can drive for a day, and then we'll take a look at the map. 

Heads Carolina, Tails California  
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer  
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean  
Where? It don't matter as long as we're going Somewhere together. I've got a quarter  
Heads Carolina, Tails California 

We're gonna get outta here if we gotta ride a Greyhound bus Boy, we're bound to outrun the bad luck that's tailin' us 

Heads Carolina, Tails California  
Somewhere greener, somewhere warmer  
Up in the mountains, down by the ocean  
Where? It don't matter as long as we're going Somewhere together. I've got a quarter  
Heads Carolina, Tails California.   
  

If you enjoyed this story, please send feedback to Marcia Elena


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